Published
Quarterly by the Nebraska State Historical Society
Addison E. Sheldon, Editor
Subscription $2.00
Per Year
All
sustaining members of the Nebraska State Historical Society receive
Nebraska History and other publications without further
payment.

Vol.
V.

January-March, 1922

No.
1

Miss Ruth A. Galleher writes a good account
of the Mormon handcart expeditions in 1855, some of which
outfitted at Iowa City, in the Palimpsest, published by the State
Historical Society of Iowa. One of these expeditions left
Florence, Nebraska, August 18 of that year and passed beyond Fort
Laramie in September. It was overtaken by snow storms and many of
its number perished from cold and hunger before the main body
reached Salt Lake City in November. Most of the members were
immigrants from Europe. Men, women, and children pushed handcarts
and walked from the Missouri river to Salt Lake. Miss Galleher
says that the deaths in 1856 handcart columns led to acrimonious
correspondence between Mormon leaders and discontinuance of
handcart parties.
Handcart Mormon expeditions were,
however, still walking to Zion on the Nebraska City-Fort Kearny
trail in the late sixties before the completion of the Union
Pacific to the Salt Lake. There are persons living in Nebraska who
remember these handcart and wheelbarrow companies.

Among the interesting Souvenirs of early
times in Furnas county is one received from the daughter of
William Sweeney, of Arapahoe, this read thus:
August 25, 1874. The bearer Mr. T. G. Brown is
empowered to collect from William Sweeney the sum of six dollars
($6.00) being money due me for use of cattle six days. John W.
Gillmore. * * * Paid this bill with four dollars ($4.00) Tuesday,
November 24 to T. G. Brown drug store William Sweeney.
It would appear that the service of a yoke of
cattle was valued by the owner at one dollar a day, but he
compromised at four dollars for six days. This receipt is written
upon a narrow sheet of note paper bearing a map the upper
left-hand comer slowing Arapahoe as a railroad center with lines
of road reaching out in every direction.

2

NEBRASKA
HISTORY

MEMOIRS OF PETER
JANSEN

Hon. Peter Jansen was born March 21, 1852, at
the town of the sea of Azof in southeastern of Berdjansk, on the
shore Russia. He came to Nebraska in 1874. He is still among us
and publishes a volume of 140 pages entitled "Memoirs of Peter
Jansen." The reader wishes the book were longer. It is one of a
number of books now being published by the pioneer of Nebraska,
each one telling the story of the early days in a personal, vivid,
interesting and truthful way.
Senator Jansen's sketch of his life has far more
than the usual interest because it tells the story of the great
"Mennonite migration" which filled vast areas of Nebraska prairies
in Jefferson, Gage, Clay, Hamilton and York counties in the decade
of 1870-80. It is time, even now, to do honor and give credit to
those people in the settlement of our State. They brought to
Nebraska a perfectly disciplined, religious, frugal hard working
people. Almost without a single exception they made a success of
their settlements and of each individual home in them.
How queer and clannish they appeared to the eyes
of the original American stock. Boyhood recollections of the
writer emphasize this. The Mennonite houses, built of sod with a
huge brick stove nearly filling one of the rooms, burning straw
for fuel and used as a general bedstead for the family on cold
winter nights. The housing of live stock in a section of family
home. The cut of the clothes. And all that.
The old American stock was inclined to scoff at
the queer people from Russia, speaking German, sticking close
together and finding in the old fashioned religion of their
deEditor,
nomination most of their culture as well as consolation.
They certainly taught Nebraska some good lessons. First of all
they brought Turkey red winter wheat from southeastern Russia.
They brought that splendid hedge tree, fruit tree and bird
shelter--the Russian mulberry. They brought steadiness and
devotion and showed how homes could be made upon the high prairies
of central Nebraska. They brought also deep, even if at times,
irrational, belief and practice in peace doctrines for they were
Quakers. They had left Prussia hundred years before to avoid
military service. They had settled in southern Russia with solemn
guaranty of exemption from that service. When the Czar broke the
contract and began to marshal all his subjects for the great war
preparation in Europe which followed, the Franco-Prussian war of
1870, these people left the fruitful farms they had made and came
to Nebraska.
Looking back upon their almost fifty years of
settlement in this state it can be said that they have proven
themselves one of the most valuable of many valuable elements
in

NEBRASKA
HISTORY

3

population. It is time for those of us having the old American
stock in our blood to say this now while some of the pioneer
Mennonites are still among us. It will be said by all, and
especially by the future Nebraska historians in a century from
now.
Senator Peter Jansen has not only given the
people of his time a book of current interest, but has made a
document which will be valued by the historian of the future as
one of the most important contributions to the history of pioneer
Nebraska.

LETTER FROM GEORGE BIRD
GRINNELL

Many thanks for the copy of Dr. Koenig's
Study of Tuberculosis among the Nebraska Winnebago. The conditions
which she pictures are shocking, but not new. In many tribes they
have been noticed for years, though not described in detail as by
Dr. Koenig. Her paper is most interesting and it is useful to have
the matter again brought up now and in such form as to reach a new
public.
The Indians are wholly ignorant of sanitation,
of the communicability of tuberculosis, and of the dangers which
follow the recent changes in mode of life. But perhaps the most
fatal thing that the Indians have had to face is the absolute lack
of an interest. In the old times the constant search for food, the
excitements of the war path, the moving about from place to place,
kept them interested and busy. These occupations have all
disappeared; and where people are in receipt of some small income
that will just support them, and so have no motive whatever for
exertion, they are without any active interest in their lives.
What the outcome shall be of the difficulties
the race is meeting, we cannot now tell; but to view the largely
preventable suffering among many tribes of Indians, is
discouraging and painful.
Dr. Koenig has done a useful piece of work in
bringing together her observations about this particular tribe. I
am especially glad that she has made inquiry into the use of
peyote, and has published what she has learned. This testimony
ought to be of some help in securing legislation by Congress
against the transportation of this drug, the use of which I have
always believed is enormously harmful.
I congratulate Dr. Koenig on her paper, and the
Nebraska Historical Society on its energy in publishing
this.

D. C. Young, rural route 1, Plattsmouth,
writes:
Please send a few extra copies of Nebraska
History from July to, December 1921. I want to send some of them
to a son of Robert Stafford, mentioned as an early settler of Rock
Bluff. I am acquainted with two men here that took part in some of
the Indian fighting of the 60's. I will try to get some data of
them. I will send you the picture of my father's log house that
was built in 1855, a part of which is still standing.

4

NEBRASKA
HISTORY

THE MORMON WINTER CAMP ON THE
NIOBRARA.

In the October-December (1921) number of the
Nebraska History Magazine, I note the wish of Hon. George F.
Smith, of Waterbury, Dixon County, that a marker might be placed
somewhere on the Old Mormon Trail that passes from Florence to
Niobrara. As little seems to be known of the Mormons in this state
and why they should have selected the mouth of the Niobrara for
winter quarters on their way to their promised land, perhaps I am
in as good a position to reveal the facts as anybody.
The first white people, in any considerable
number, to stop in the old L'Eau qui Court (Rapid river or
Niobrara) county were the Mormons. The party comprised sixty-five
families with one hundred and fifty wagons. It was the pioneer
train to the land of promise, and it was at this point (or rather
on the west bank of the Niobrara river opposite the town of
Niobrara) that they spent the winter of 1846-7.
Until 1901 it was believed by the founders of
Niobrara, because of the numerous graves found in that vicinity,
that these Mormons had perished at the hands of the red men, and
their coming and their going was shrouded in mystery. In June,
1901, Isaac and John Riddle, the former from Provo, Utah, the
latter from Crete, Nebraska, visited Niobrara for the purpose of
locating these landmarks and two mill burrs that had been left
here by them in their departture (sic).

NEBRASKA
HISTORY

5

It was my good fortune to have an extended
interview with these Mormons. Isaac, at the time of the Mormon
camp here in 1847, was sixteen, and his return gave me an
opportunity to straighten out history, and it is hoped that
Captain North will, if he has not already done so, locate "Pawnee
Station," the first stop.
Mr. Riddle said that in their start from
Kanesville, Iowa, in July 1846, they made the first wagon wheel
mark up the Platte Valley. While in camp at Pawnee Station
(presumably near Columbus or Genoa), where soldiers were
stationed, they contracted with the government to harvest a crop
of small grain and corn which had been put in by laborers, but
who, becoming frightened by the Pawnees, had fled. While thus
engaged in the close of the harvest a courier from Kanesville
arrived with orders not to proceed farther, as it was feared they
could not reach their destination before winter set in, and they
should seek winter quarters.
It was found that prairie fires had devastated
the country west of Laramie and thereabouts. A band of Ponca
Indians chanced to be visiting the Pawnees at the time, who, upon
inquiry, reported that excellent winter quarters could be found at
the mouth of the Niobrara river, and they volunteered to pilot
them. Mr. Riddle said that his party had with them a small cannon
which much attracted their attention and he thought that this was
one reason for their solicitation, since the Sioux always annoyed
the Poncas.
The Ponca had truly led them into a country of
verdure -- plenty of feed and timber and game. The young men of
the party frequently accompanied the Indians in their winter hunts
up the Niobrara Valley, The timber stretches were abundant with
wild turkeys and the prairies alive with buffalo. "Where your town
now stands," (Niobrara), said the aged patriarch,"there were
Indian camps from the mouth of the Niobrara to Five Mile (Bazile)
Creek."
During the winter of 1846-7 Newell Knight, a
millwright, chiseled from granite boulders found in the
neighboring hillsides, two mill-burrs, with which they had
intended to grind their grain by horse-power.
Mr. Knight and sixteen others, principally women
and children, succumbed to pneumonia. The mission of the Riddles
was to locate these graves for Jesse Knight, the Utah capitalist,
whose father's remains lie here, that an appropriate monument
might be erected in memory of that winter's sojourn. The graves
had become extinct, but ashes from fireplaces in the barracks were
found.
In the spring of 1907 Jesse Knight, two
daughters, and elder brother, the president of the Mormon
University, and J. W. Townsend, of Crete, Nebraska, who also
accompanied the Riddles in 1901, made final arrangements for the
ground on which the present impressive granite shaft, surrounded
by an iron fence, faces the public highway, telling its own, short
story thus:

Erected 1908
NEWELL KNIGHT
Born Sept. 13, 1800, Died Jan. 11, 1847
A Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints.

Father

Who died during the hardships of our exodus
from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City. "Blessed are they which are
persecuted for righteousness sake; for theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven."

In the spring of 1847 these Mormons were
called back to Florence by Kanesville church heads, returning by
the Bazile Valley and over to the Logan Valley. A new start was
made the spring following. This route was selected, Mr. Riddle
explained, because of the heavy rains and consequent impassable
condition of the Platte Valley. By taking the old trail via
Waterbury and the head of the Bazile, they were enabled to head
the Elkhorn that they might reach Laramie. The main business,
street of Creighton, Nebraska, is on the Old Mormon Trail.

EDWIN A. FRY.

These burrs were in existence when the first
permanent white settlers came to Niobrara and were used in a small
mill on the Red Bird, but no trace of them could be found when the
Riddles and the Knights were here, nor since. It was supposed that
the west channel that forms Niobrara Island Park had been used for
power, and to this day that channel is designated as "the Mormon
canal," but this was not the case, as these authorities advised me
when inquiry was made.

FROM A YOUNG OCTOGENARIAN
PIONEER

I think the following letter fully fits the
title.
Mr. Roberts' statement that all of the bricks
for the first university building were made in Nebraska City seems
to be incorrect. "A Complete History" of Its (Lincoln's)
Foundation and Growth____," by John H. Ames, printed in June 1870,
hundred and forty thousand bricks are now on hand, and the
brick-yard is furnished with one thousand cords of wood and two
improved brick machines capable of moulding 28 000 bricks per day,
with which brick may be made as fast as needed in the construction
of the building. A sufficient amount of sand and lime is also on
hand for the completion of the work, which is to be commenced on
the walls during the present Week____." This statement by Mr. Ames
deserves credence. Furthermore, under date of June 22, 1870, David
Butler, governor; John Gillespie, auditor; and Thomas P. Kennard,
secretary of state, as "Commissioners of Public Buildings of the
State of Nebraska," certify the correctness of the history.
Thomas Malloy, a stonecutter from Chicago who
was employed in the construction of the first capitol in Lincoln,
in a short history of that enterprise referred incidentally to the
construction of the university building, as follows: "In 1868 Mr.
Robert Silvers got the contract of building the State University.
The first thing he did was to start a brick yard. He

NEBRASKA
HISTORY

7

bought all the wood he could find in the country and had to
haul it with teams as there was no railroad in the country at that
time."
The contract for the erection of the university
building was dated August 19, 1869. D. J. Silver and Son were the
contracting builders. The son, Robert D., was the actual builder.
This scandalous agreement with David Butler, on the part of the
state, was the gist of articles of the impeachment proceedings
against the governor.
Mr. James Stuart Dales, who has been secretary
of the board of regents of the university since December 1, 1875,
says that some bricks, made in Nebraska City, were used for facing
the walls of the building.

Dade City, Florida, March 23,
1922.

Mr. Albert Watkins,
Lincoln, Nebraska.
Dear Sir:
Yours of the 20th instant received. It seems odd
to be called upon to recite, as if it were ancient history, some
facts that seem to me very recent. It may be true that I am
getting old but where are the scores of younger men who knew as
well as I or better all about the building of the first or
Administration building of the State University. I arrived in
Lincoln, February 20th, 1870, and on the 22nd there was an
adjournment of the state legislature and all went out to view the
site of the penitentiary which had just been located. It was a
fine warm day and I and two friends were lying on the grass
southwest of the capitol when we saw a cloud of dust and teams
coming from the south. It was the legislators and citizens coming
back from the Penitentiary site. They were in open lumber wagons
mostly. (There was only one two-seated carriage in town at the
time, that of Governor Butler), and all were engaged in a wild
race whipping the horses and yelling like Comanches. That was my
introduction to official Nebraska. But I am not answering your
questions.
The brick for the University building came from
Nebraska City. Part of them were on the ground when I came and the
walls of the basement were more than half completed. The bricks
were laid in that year 1870 and at that time no bricks bad been
made at Lincoln except one or two small kilns burned by Luke
Lavender. L. K. Holmes began burning brick in 1879 and that fall
or the next spring Moore & Krone began burning brick. They had
the contract for the High School building and burned their own
brick. That was in 1872. I do not know who hauled the brick for
the University or whether Nebraska City helped pay for hauling,
but presume not. John Burks, if still alive, should know something
about, the mat-